A journal of art + literature engaging with nature, culture, the environment & ecology

Alternating Current

Audrey Tan Hui En, Singapore

 

I am trying not to think about the sun,

and the fake waterfall crashing

behind my back. A fat brown bird

does not know to go left or right—

there, in the grass, I’d thrown a snail,

which Acacia had nearly crushed.

Upwards, in the sky,

clouds are moving right.

 

Later, at home, a baby lizard is climbing

over the glass pane of my shower.

Wet and naked, I watch the way it sticks,

its feet, round and flat and pink. I think

about the urgency of writing,

even though this sounds like a way

to delay the necessary—dishes in the sink,

items on my list. I don’t understand

how the joy of watching an orange butterfly flit

over a hedge of red leaves could give such clarity:

my shadow on the grey ground,

head hovering over notebook.

 

The lizard’s neck throbs curiously

as it balances on the edge of glass above me.

I crab-walk outside, dripping.

 

Audrey Tan is working on short stories about the complexities of interpersonal relationships. Her fiction has been published locally and overseas. She is a fiction editor of the Journal of Practice, Research and Tangential Activities (PR&TA), and teaches creative writing and language courses.

after images

Yolatsin ipan nokalpan (The Feelings of the Water in My Community)